Dec 7, 2015

Really it is this kind of unexpected week where you receive a lot of great feedback from the games you've worked so hard over the last months or years. Yesterday we brought back Best iOS Game for Lara Croft GO and Best Technology for Hitman: Sniper at the Canadian Video Game Awards 2015. And btw, Hitman GO is coming to PS4 and Vita soon :)
But the the "Apple" on the cake is definitely the AppStore2015 andiPhoneGame of the Year award (last year was another great stylized game > Monument Valley).

SOo if you haven't played any of these titles, maybe now you know they are actually really good and that I wasn't bluffing! Here is an early illustration for the game when we were still looking for the art style...

Dec 5, 2015

For lack of updates on some personal artworks here are a few random news, lately thanks to the presence of our new concept artist Sarah at the Square-Enix office, the last months has been very productive and much more creative. we went out to a lot of exhibits and shows, notably the Expozine 2015. It's a great small local & international press fair with lots of alternative zines, illustrators and comic book artist, all in all a very imaginative crowd!

It was impossible to come back empty-handed though, so here is what I brought in the bag: local star Michel Falardeau's Combats ultimes de roi de la montagne, de celebrites, pis tute. I really dig his style and humor, totally stupid yet very funny!

Last night we went to a cocktail event at La Pasteque, a French publishing house with a nice cosy place here in the Mile-End district, thanks to Sarah who knows a few residents of the studio like Matt Forsythe and Genevieve Godbout. They have an interesting roster of authors and great original comic books. Isabelle Arsenault is really classy and super talented, I bought her comic book Jane, le renard & moi, and she made this cool dedicace, thanks a lot Isabelle. It was a pleasant evening followed by a good meal at la Panthere Verte.

Now all of this motivates me a lot, gotta go back to the drawing board!

Dec 3, 2015

Great news, in addition to being the Editor's choice on all platforms we just won the Best Mobile/Handheld Game of the Year for Lara Croft GO at the Game Awards 2015, although I'm never really fond of those self-congratulatory events it still a nice award for the hard-working team at SEM. Congrats guys, it was worth the effort :)

You can play the game with the addition of our latest DLC The Shard of Life, I'm honestly really proud of this title, available on iOS, Android and soon Windows.

Thanks a lot to all the players for your support, give us your feedback so we can keep improving.

Oct 19, 2015

It's voting day here in Canada and hopefully we'll finally get rid of Harper for good, although the potential new Prime Minister may well be from the Liberal party... which also means that we are fucked anyway. Our democracies are dead!

At least I just came back from a really interesting and beautiful interactive performance called #Boxtape, my friend and climbing partner Sonia Reboul was there, she is the marketing & com director at Tangente Danse(the company organizing the event).

Sarah and I spent a good time at the show, using the free available tape rolls to create ephemeral sculptures and contribute to the evolving and intricate spiderweb display. Go check it out if you can, last day is tomorrow.

my little contribution, LUV!

It was a fun night at the Paper Factory in Griffintown, although I forgot how intense the gentrification process was in this area. #boxtape #TangenteDanse

Aug 9, 2015

Early concept pieces I've made for Lara Croft GO, the game is aimed at mobile platforms and started with a vertical screen setup, we ended up choosing an horizontal format as it surely conveys a better sense of adventure. It will be released soon on August 27th 2015 check for more info HERE you are all invited to participate in the Art Contest, clock is ticking, good luck and see you at PAX Prime in Seattle for the results.

May 15, 2015

I have finally decided to refresh my outdated website, it's about time yes I know! It should be up and running soon and will be easier to update on my side!
And I found this on my backups, a step-by-step of the Monkey King that I've made for the book by CYPI: 72 Transformations. #barontieri

Apr 25, 2015

Next week I'll be in Los Angeles with my old team from Austin, TX and we'll be part of a charity event at the Gnomon Gallery with the Art Explorers. All funds will be donated to the California Wildlife Center. Please come see us and support the sea lions! Haven't drawn any animals for a long time so here are some digital sketches. #ExpeditionArt

Mar 26, 2015

Ever been a backer for a kickstarter project (or any crowdfunding campaign for instance)? I believe that this fan-based support system is amazing and has changed a lot of things when it comes to helping great ideas become a reality. However it could be very frustrating when you don't get regular updates or when the product is getting ridiculously postponed to an unknown date. That's what we are experiencing with the Yufustylusby Hex3. It started with the best intentions: becoming the best pressure-sensitive stylus for the iPAD (or other tablets on Android and Windows) with a precise fine-point, tilt, gyro, palm-rejection and high-quality design.

Anyways, over a year later we are still waiting to receive it, I'll give you a review as soon as it arrives and hope this will meet our expectations!

Mar 5, 2015

I have been working on a side racing game project with some friends, it's currently on hold because we are too busy with our respective jobs but we'll eventually finish it and make it available for free. The prototype already works well and it's fun however the art is still far behind! I wanted to share the 1st researches of its initial art direction, as you can see there are different styles within the stylized approach, my goal was to try and see what could be interesting.

early sketches...

As you can tell it involves jet-powered vehicles and some hmm "weirdo" pilots, I can't reveal too much of the gameplay right now but trust me, you'll enjoy playing it :)

Adventure Time style...

Since then I have completely changed the global visual direction and have more interesting ideas, this was a worthwhile exercise nonetheless and it kept me busy last year.

Feb 22, 2015

Here are some early visual development researches when I joined the project. They had already started a year before my arrival and they needed to fill the Art Director's position because Serge moved to Child of Light. At the time it was supposed to be a family game and a sequel to the Your Shape franchise with a new type of gameplay based on the motto "gamify fitness". The game was a surprisingly fun and efficient workout but on the art side it was a mess for many reasons: 3 people-only art team with the unfair pressure to create exciting graphics for a "next-gen" game, an unrealistic scope for such a small team, a fuzzy target, a broken engine, too many chiefs with too many different visions which means... too many compromises and in the end a totally flavorless product!

SNOWBALL challenge, unfortunately cancelled...

paintover of the early WORKOUT environments...

My mission was to bring something unique and appealing while respecting the work already in place, all in all on a VERY tight schedule. Well it was clearly a difficult task and it failed! I always wanted to make something stylized, bright and colorful but it meant taking a lot of risks and starting from scratch, during the following months of production the results started to feel quite visually unimaginative for the same reasons stated before, a semi-realistic mash up of interesting settings and ideas but poorly executed, in short too many compromises again. #shapeup

Feb 15, 2015

I have proudly worked almost 2 years on the latest arcade-fitness game by Ubisoft; Shape Up and even though it didn't make much noise, it was a fun project created by a dedicated small team and the visual result is still very original. I'll put some more artworks soon and in the meantime here are some screenshots of the crazy environments we made which will give you an idea of our general art direction. #shapeup